Show HN: IKEA Complexity Index

A fan-built site called the IKEA Complexity Index set out to do one very important public service: rank IKEA products by how painful they are to build, using a simple formula of steps multiplied by total parts. In theory, it’s the perfect rabbit hole for anyone who has ever opened a flat-pack box and immediately questioned their life choices. But in the comments, people weren’t just browsing furniture stats — they were bringing receipts, skepticism, and battle scars.

The biggest mood? “Cool idea, but where did this data even come from?” One commenter immediately asked for the source, while another jumped in with a mini detective report explaining how some IKEA item numbers hide bundles of multiple products, which could seriously mess with the rankings. Translation for non-IKEA obsessives: what looks like one item may actually be a whole squad of smaller parts pretending to be a single purchase.

And then came the comedy. One person looked at a bed base that takes 3 hours to assemble and declared it “3h of fun,” basically rebranding flat-pack suffering as a budget hobby. Another commenter absolutely stole the show by saying their old bunk bed was so hard to take apart, the only real solution was an angle grinder. That is not feedback; that is a cry for help.

Still, not everyone was charmed. One user tried four products and found none of them listed, turning the vibe from “fun internet project” to “my furniture has been erased.” So yes, the site is delightfully nerdy — but the comments reveal the real story: IKEA fans love the chaos, and they have strong opinions about measuring it.